Care and Justice in Engineering Education

This paper offers a reflection on teaching Care Ethics in combination with Design for Social Justice. The goal of the reflection is to share ideas and challenges in implementing this important approach to ethics. The paper includes a comparison of Care ethics with traditional approaches to ethics, noting the weakness of those to handle the requirements of acting aspirationally. We then position Care ethics alongside design for social justice, as a way to put Care into practice. We explore our mixed success with classroom activities and student engagement with Care through design for social justice. We ask particularly how students might embody care beyond their immediate sphere of influence.